Early seat differences

[Jordan Baker]

Hi all

While digging into the nitty gritty details of my Otter rebuild I realized there was some minute differences in early CMP seat production.

The early seats used a somewhat flimsy style of slider mechanism and a cast lever compared to the later style that was much more robust.

Anyway one of the minor differences is between the Ford and the GM lever for the seat adjuster.

GM used the following part numbers.

5800156 Lever, Seat Adjusting
5800694 Lever, Seat Adjusting (pictured)

Ford used ( don’t have a Ford parts manual.

C01Q-786463 (pictured)

What’s interesting is they are essentially the same cast lever except the Ford one had a larger end.

[Bob Carriere]

Some seat pans were stamped from one piece of metal.......I believe that very early ones had a spot welded centre with the rims spot welded..... some also had a fixed back rest that did not fold forward........

As any one experimented with making seat bottom out of foam......Mac Auto offers custom single seats at around $350 US $ just for the wire spring with no cover. . Possibly a sandwich of multilayer density foam that would look tight for MV shows BUT also offer some degree of bump absorption........ I recently drove my cab 11 on very rough roads and was pounced clear off the seat....repeatedly....and slammed the spring cushion flat into the steel pan......... according to someone following me he maintained that I had enough air time for a pilot's license.........also blew the RH small Delco shock absorber which lost its oil...( I have spares)... on a real rough road they are brutal..... but have yet to make use of the repro rubber head pads.

Now of the opinion that seat belts are essential to limit the amount of effort .....death grip on the steering wheel......needed to stay behind the wheel to be ready for the next bump.....

...but it was fun!!!!!

[rob love]

I just recently had to replace the seat assembly on a cab 12 FAT. It was the early and low one. The tracks were horribly bent, and after straightening them and re-installing them, the seat would fail again the next day.

The holes were already on the floor which matched a cab 13 seat frame so installed that. Bonus was that it sits a lot higher, and with a bit of oil, it slides like hot butter.

[Jordan Baker]

Rob, what was the failure point? The tracks for the early ones are very light weight compared to the later ones.


Bob, I actually find the original spring bases and horsehair padding pretty comfortable compared to anything foam will provide.

[rob love]

It was indeed the tracks. The tracks would pop out at inopportune times. They had become twisted, and the base of the seat had been rewelded onto the pan at some point in it's history. I'm not so sure the geometry was correct.